David Harbour on HELLBOY and Getting To Play with Witches, Giants, and Demons
It sounds like David Harbour had a blast making the new Hellboy movie with director Neil Marshall. Of course, he wishes he could've done it when he was 20 years younger. During a recent interview with Collider, that actor talked about the film and how much he enjoyed playing with a variety of mythical creatures.
"It was the hardest shoot I’ve ever done, primarily because there are just so many stunts in it. It’s a very action-packed movie. There’s a lot of story, too, and a lot of big scenes, but there’s a lot of action. There’s a lot of me running around, jumping and turning, and punching stuff. It’s crazy! I’m 42, and the fact that no one asked me to do this in my 20s is so insulting. Why did I have to become a super-monster in my 40s?! My bones are not the same as they used to be. It was very hard, in that way, but it’s also really thrilling ‘cause I get to carve out an entirely new mythos to this guy and I get to play on this big palette of witches and giants and demons."
It's going to be really fun to see Hellboy take on these creatures. He once again goes on to compare the movie to Shakespear and explains how the supernatural elements play into the characters development:
"To me, it’s very Shakespearean. I grew up doing regional Shakespeare and when Hamlet sees the ghost of his father, there’s something about that that you don’t really do in film anymore. We rarely see an indie film where you have an emotional pathos where somebody sees a ghost. This is a palette where you can have demons and ghosts and big creatures and things that are epic, in that way."
The actor goes on to discuss the conflicted nature of the character, how he feels lost, and his duty to protect humanity as well as the creatures that he protects them from:
"He’s a half-demon/half-man who’s lost in this world where he fights for human beings against monsters, so to speak, and yet he is part monster. There’s a very interesting thematic kernel about a guy who’s lost and who doesn’t understand who he is, and he’s really struggling with that. That’s something that we play out in the movie, and that’s really exciting to me to play. You can have all the humor and all the action, and then you get to play this very deep, personal truth of feeling like you’re an outcast, or like you’re making the wrong decisions with your life and you’d like to turn that around. All those concepts and themes are things that I find very interesting."
I've really liked everything that I've heard about the film so far and I can't wait to get a look at some footage. Hellboy is set to be released on January 11th, 2019.
